Having his head injury examined: Novak Djokovic.Image: keystone
Novak Djokovic (ATP 1) suffered a bitter setback two weeks before the start of the French Open. The Serb failed in the third round of the Masters 1000 tournament in Rome against Chilean Alejandro Tabilo (ATP 32) 2:6, 3:6.
The top seed Novak Djokovic was far from his top form before the second Grand Slam tournament of the year. The 36-year-old made a number of slight mistakes.
Tellingly, Djokovic ended the match after just 67 minutes with a double fault on his own serve:
His opponent, who was ten years his junior, took advantage of the opportunity and played tactically cleverly. Tabilo became the first Chilean since 2007 to defeat a world number one. At that time, Fernando Gonzalez beat the Swiss Roger Federer at the ATP finals. “This is crazy, I can’t believe it,” said Tabilo, who will face Russian Karen Khachanov in the round of 16.
Fatal incident with bottle
Even off the court, Djokovic’s trip to the eternal city was a failure this year. After Friday’s win against Frenchman Corentin Moutet, he was hit by a bottle while signing autographs and fell to the ground:
The tournament released a video showing that Novak Djokovic was hit on the head by accident.
The bottle slipped from a fan’s backpack.
Just a very unfortunate, unlucky situation. ❤️🩹
(via @InteBNLdItalia)
pic.twitter.com/5LIzzWZpMS— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) May 10, 2024
The organizers of the clay court tournament in the Italian capital then announced that Djokovic had been treated with appropriate medication. A statement said that the drinking bottle had probably accidentally fallen on the six-time winner of the tournament and was not thrown at him on purpose.
The next day, “Djoker” reacted to the strange incident with humor. He showed up for training with a bike helmet over his roof cap:
Update
This story has already been published on watson, but due to current circumstances we have decided to update it and publish it again.
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